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A New Ground War in Syria: Who Really Cares?

We have just declared war without bothering to actually declare war. We have committed ground troops to Syria. We have done this without publicity, public discussion or acts of Congress.

We didn’t hide the news, unless you consider it to be hiding in plain sight. It’s not a secret. It’s just quiet. Maybe the president calculated that with all the glittering distractions, we in the public and in the media just wouldn’t care about a few more men being sent to the Middle East. Maybe they were right.

I found out on Wednesday 3/8/17 at 4PM. It took 24 hours from the time I learned from the Guardian of the two deployments we’re making to Syria, for the story to begin to break here. Last night there was nothing on MSNBC, CNN or NBC. This morning there was nothing in the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times or on the morning shows I watched.

Even now (Thursday afternoon), it barely ripples the surface as the media concentrates on politics, process and who is winning the messaging wars concerning ACA or the various distracting Trump tweets. I guess we’ve been at war so long that a new one or major escalation just isn’t newsworthy.

Those of us who remember Vietnam and the few advisors who were sent in beneath our public RADAR, must be concerned that this version of “Listening to the Generals” will lead to the same bitter and tragic slog. “We can win this thing with only a few more troops,” is what we were told. It wasn’t true then, and it won’t be true now.

But even if I’m wrong about the direction or outcome, it is a very big deal to commit ground troops in Syria. First of all, we are not at war with Syria. We have soldiers in Iraq at the express request of the legally recognized government of Iraq. Bashar al-Assad, however vile he is, is the legally recognized head of the state of Syria. He invited Russia in to do his dirty work. So now we are in the embarrassing situation of Russia acting legally while we are in contravention of international law.

We are starting with artillery support in taking Raqqa from ISIS. Yes, a worthy goal, but without public involvement this is wrong and dangerous–dangerous to our troops and also to our democracy.

There is a second deployment. We’re sending our troops into the border region of Syria and Turkey. We’re sending them as a buffer between our allies, Turkey and the Kurds. Yes, we’re putting our men and women in harm’s way to keep our allies from killing each other. Hmmm, what could go wrong here? We’re entering into an internecine dispute both to keep our friends from killing each other and to focus them on our common enemy ISIS. There’s just as much chance that we’ll become their common enemy.

We may not want to be the world’s policemen, but we’re certainly acting like the police all over the world. And the thing is: We haven’t bothered with securing a warrant. President decides. Congress doesn’t care. Media are distracting the public. Will we notice when the bodies come home? Will we care that bombarding Raqqa to “liberate it” might give us less standing to be outraged at Russia’s bombardment of Aleppo?

There is a movement to return the right and responsibility of declaring war to congress. Perhaps they would be willing to spend more days working and be available to make these weighty decisions. I congratulate you for shining a bright light here.